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With Republicans promising another climactic fight over the $16.4 trillion debt limit in two months, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday that if she were president, she would invoke the Constitution to raise the ceiling on her own — with or without permission from the GOP.

“I would do it, in a second, but I’m not the president of the United States,” Pelosi said.

Like many other Democrats, Pelosi is eyeing the language in the 14th Amendment stating that the validity of U.S. public debts “shall not be questioned.” Prominent Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, have argued that language — added in the aftermath of the Civil War — gives Obama all the authority he needs to break the ceiling.

Realistic or not, the talk underscores growing liberal concern that yet another round of brinksmanship will hobble Washington and the economy — and force Obama into a bad negotiating position — just months after Congress went over the so-called fiscal cliff and then barely averted it with a last-minute tax deal.

Whether Obama could invoke the 14th Amendment to raise the debt limit is an open legal question.

But that isn’t deterring some Democrats.

Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) said on Friday the Constitution not only allows Obama to bypass Congress on the debt ceiling — it compels him to.

“I think [the Constitution] is pretty clear. He must do something about paying the bills,” Udall said. “If Congress doesn’t give him an avenue to do that, a leader needs to take a course of action if the bills aren’t being paid. That could be devastating to our economy. It could be devastating to our reputation around the world.”

The nation reached its $16.4 trillion borrowing limit on Dec. 31, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says his department is currently taking “extraordinary measures” that will only allow the nation to pay its bills for about another two months.

And after caving on tax hikes in the fiscal cliff deal, Republican leaders are promising rank-and-file conservatives that they’ll use the need for a debt ceiling increase as leverage to extract major spending cuts, a strategy they successfully employed in 2011. But a government default holds far more economic catastrophic consequences than tax hikes and spending cuts.

The president has insisted that he won’t negotiate around the ceiling, calling the threat of default an unacceptable bargaining chip in budget negotiations. The White House has not commented on other options.

But with Republicans repeatedly promising a fight, some Democrats are urging the president not to take the Constitution off the table.

“I’m one of those who thinks the president and the government has a basis for moving forward and not being held hostage by a political party — so whether it’s the 14th Amendment or other grounds, I think there are ways that the government has to move forward without being held hostage to political threats,” says House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra, who sits on the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

Nevertheless, the White House says the 14th Amendment is off the table, casting doubt on the legal merits of the strategy. Press secretary Jay Carney stated in December that “this administration does not believe that the 14th Amendment gives the president the power to ignore the debt ceiling — period.”

If Obama does try to lift the limit on his own, at least one Republican has threatened a constitutional counter of his own: impeachment.

Readers' Comments (224)

Obama's plan is Trickle Up Poverty where everyone is equally poor except the ruling class similar to Cuba and the Old USSR. The democrats want to create a permanent majority of people who are dependent upon the government for their basic needs and will always vote for the party who offers more free stuff. A clever way to use taxpayer money to buy votes.

It is pointless to urge President Obama not to retreat from a position of strength when confronted by GOP intransigence; he will always do so, as his behavior in the recent fiscal cliff negotiation made clear. After campaigning vocally on raising tax rates for those above the $250,000 income threshold, he was the first to offer raising that to $400,000 when by simply "standing pat" he could have accomplished his orginal proposal simply by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Inevitably the GOP would have had to concede to him by reinstating those rates only for the 98 percent below his original $250,000 threshold, so long as he refused to reinstate them across the board, but resoluteness is not in his repertoire.

Republican fear of Obama invoking the Fourteenth Amendment, and ordering Treasury to pay the bills, is the best argument for Obama keeping that measure as an option. Their threat to impeach him if he uses it shows that it would be a good idea.

An offensive, to Republicans at least, strike without waiting would be most effective. Leave the house and senate republicans in disarray. So what if it moves through the courts, the action transactions will be in place when the decisions come down.

Shut down every Federal military installation from North Carolina to Texas. I have had enough of these Southern welfare queen states.

And shut down NASA, too.

I'm tired of these idiot Libs using satellites to watch TV and guide their cars................

Don't forget to stop sending out those Government pension checks to all those folks who've fled the Blue States to retire, and AFDC checks to the overwhelming number of minorities that live in the south as well.

I'm tired of these morons giving away our tax money, and then acting like it's OUR fault that FAR more of the people they give it to live here in the south.................

Maybe if they seek an Impeachment over THIS, they will finally grow big enough Cajones to back it up with his fraudulent B.C....at LEAST,investigate the Investigation of Sheriff Joe that all but proved he issued a Fraudulent document to the American people.I hope his skinny ass gets haiuled off to prison before this is allover, for the damage he has inflicted on this Nation and it's people.What a disaster.EVERYDAY, just stress and disaster !

OK the 14 amendment was written for the rights of slaves but I guess some of you are going to try to stretch the 4 sub that mentions debt. Read close that also states the debt is caused by rebellion. But maybe you can really really stretch that to convince a judge. Then you must have been to lazy to read sub 5. That little ditty say's that Congress has the power to enact or deny it. So let's see where it all goes.

When will republicans get serious about spending borrowed money on the inflated war machine with tons of military contractors, war on drugs (massive waste of money), foreign bases (isn't 50 years enough for taxpayers). farming subsidies and more. I don't consider Social Security and Medicaid as entitlements.

3 things are going to happen if he tries to slime his way through this.

1. Just try it Obama...you will end up being a 4yr lame duck President and can kiss goodbye any further cooperation on anything...you thought it has been difficult to date to work with the opposition, you pull this stunt and forget about it.

2. The markets will turn on Obama and destroy the economy if he invokes the 14th

3. The American people who have been blinded by guilt will turn on you as well and see you for what you are, a socialist big taxing big spending liberal...setting the Democratic party on course for crushing losses in 2014 and 2016.

No economist in the country considers the debt a critical issue to be dealt with out of this or next year's budgets. Any effort to shrink the deficit in 2013 or 2014 will be self defeating because that shock therapy would slow recovery, likely throw us into a recessions and balloon the debt projections by trillions more. As it is, canceling the 2% payroll tax cut is forecast to slow the economic growth by 0.5% annually all by itself.

Every economist says that now is the time for fiscal stimulus spending on our crumbling and outmoded infrastructure (especially bridges, the electrical grid, and our slow internet), education and training, and research grants to increase the growth rate and INVEST in the American economy. These won't "crowd out" private investment (especially at current low levels), but rather complement and stimulate business to invest and banks to lend (instead of sitting on the trillions they currently refuse to unleash).

At the same time, the long-run debt problems can and should be dealt with now by locking in committments to balanced budgets and surpluses during the last four years of this decade after the economy has recovered from the financial panic of 2008. Meanwhile, higher growth from the new stimulus plan now will dramatically lessen the projected debt.

Why can't Washington see that we can do both at once but will only worsen the debt if we don't act now to reduce? It is so easy to do and everyone wins. This is not like one of those zero sum game impasses of the 1970s and early 1980s where every decision was a Hobson's choice: inflation or unemployment, energy or the environment, growth or quality of life. We can have it all, and there would be no losers. The wealthy will do even better rather than losing everything. But we can't get there from here because of blind ideology, game of ruin partisanship, economic ignorance paired with political hubris, and a broken political system.

It's so ironic how the wing nuts hate the 14th amendment, and would even more if it's used to save the economy from these self-destructive loonies. Don't they know that when Romney said, "My friend, corporations are people, too," he was referring to the status conferred by that same 14th Amendment?